


Vice

by CrossedBeams



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, TW: Drugs, Undercover, casefile, tw: prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-18 09:46:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9379106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrossedBeams/pseuds/CrossedBeams
Summary: A weekend assignment gets out of control with Mulder undercover. Things come to a head, dragging Scully into the picture with unexpected consequences. Part 1 PG, Part 2 NSFW





	1. Unexpected

When Mulder got the call it had seemed a fairly benign request, far less dangerous than the New Spartans and much less likely to mess with his head than a loan out to Behavioural Science. Of all the favours he’d been obliged to do to keep The X-Files open, a weekend in New York, reconnecting with an old Oxford classmate was by far the simplest and so he’d said yes. He hadn’t even told Scully he was going on a case; she had some family arrangement and he would be back Monday. **  
**

Except he wasn’t.

From that first night, the staged meeting at an exclusive party and the trip afterwards to the kind of club that you need a password and a Bentley to get into, Mulder had found himself swept back into a world he hadn’t even realised how glad he was to have escaped. Jasper Hammond’s circle had more money than morals, a sense of entitlement that had only grown with age and a decisively cruel streak. He had welcomed Mulder with open arms, calling him Fox as he poured him endless Laphroaig, and seeing the wealthy, rakish American who had sometimes helped him with his essays at Oxford instead of the tortured man the Bureau knew. It had been beguiling for all of an hour, easy to forget his task in the face of the moneyed hedonism, but then there had been the private club, the drugs and then the girls offered to him whose faces were painted brightly to mask their youth and their terror, who disappeared into private rooms with uncaring men and were whisked away afterwards.

Mulder remembered in that instant why he had run. Why he had become a government employee rather than a hedge fund manager. Many of his former set saw the world as an enormous shop, where nothing was beyond their grasp for enough money with the right people. And it seemed Jasper Hammond was right at the heart of it, smuggling not only the drugs Mulder had been sent in to find, but anything that people would pay for: weapons, secrets and people just lines on his wicked ledger.

And so the weekend had become a month, endless drinks parties with endless faceless mobsters and moguls as Mulder won Jasper’s trust, fed back information and hid his loathing behind a wardrobe of expensive clothes and an affected coolness.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he could do it, the sleaziness of easy money was beginning to cling to him at night, refusing to come off under the needle hot stream of the shower and following him into clandestine debriefings and information exchanges. Mulder was losing himself, out here alone with the worst parts of his past, his only communications with Scully a few messages relayed by Skinner when he threatened to walk. Things had been strained between them ever since the bee in his hallway, inconsistent, with moments of connection at Christmas that made him hope they might someday finish that moment, dashed by the despairing certainty that she would never let him be more than her partner. Mulder suspected that his latest disappearing act would tip the scales even further from where he wanted them. Scully wouldn’t care that his intentions had been good, she believed in results rather than rationalisations.

Sighing at having put his foot in it once again, Mulder drags his attention back to the darkened room that is the venue for tonight’s debauchery and prays it will all be over soon. They are in an underground club that is somewhat grimier than Jasper’s usual haunts and the wall between the private room where they are waiting for the owner and the dance floor is thin. It shakes with the heady boom of the bass, jarring Mulder’s teeth in his head, but he doesn’t move. If tonight goes how Jasper has hinted it should, then a hugely lucrative deal will be done, one that will cement his operation’s place in the international smuggling community, make him tens of millions, and with Mulder’s help, provide British and US authorities with enough ammunition to bring it all tumbling down.

One more night, Mulder projects his desire to get the heck out of this assignment to whatever universal deities may be listening, and shifts in his chair, grimacing once again at the cling of the leather pants Jasper had insisted he put on. Citing the club’s edgy, vampy clientele and BDSM inspired decor, Jasper had taken great delight in Mulder’s discomfort, laughing when his old friend had refused to put on a meshed shirt with the tight leather pants before shrugging into his own studded  and strapped leather ensemble. They look ridiculous, but Jasper seems to enjoy the theatricality of it, so Mulder plays along, glad that in the sweaty confines of the club he is at least not out of place.

The door opens and in walks the owner, Fraser Malloy. Irish by extraction and lynchpin of the local drug scene, he is five minutes late and the size of a small house. He and his goons are suited and booted in a way that makes Mulder, Jasper and their bodyguard look like the idiot rich kids they are, and after an appraising look that doesn’t bode terribly well, Mulder and the guard find themselves deposited unceremoniously on the dance floor. It seems the bureau will have to hope Jasper Hammond feels like sharing what transpires as a wall of hired flesh forces Mulder away from the meeting.

Physically and mentally exhausted, Mulder crosses to the bar and orders a drink, Jack and coke, the kind of thing Jasper would never order and the caffeine kick he so desperately needs. Sliding onto a stool at the quieter end of the bar, he downs it in one and then rests his forehead on his arms, too drained to even scan the bar for anyone else he recognises.

He doesn’t need to see her to recognise her though. The quiet strength of her voice is enough to cut through his fatigue and all the background noise.

‘Nice pants Mulder.’

And he’s upright, scanning the room until he sees the the beacon of her hair threading away from him through the crowd, shoulders white above a tight bodiced corset and  a tray of shot glasses held high over her head.

What the hell is Scully doing in here?

He’s about to follow her when a long arm is flung across his shoulders, halting him.

‘Finally a piece of ass has caught your eye mate?!’ Jasper’s gaze follows Mulder’s to where Scully has now disappeared into a private booth across the dance floor. ‘I was beginning to think maybe you were a poof, but now I know you were just holding out for a ginger!’ The man giggles at his own hateful joke as he pulls Mulder to his feet.

‘C’mon mate, we’ve got details to sort and the redhead will still be here for later.’ Mulder hopes desperately that he’s wrong, he doesn’t want Scully anywhere near Hammond or his people, not even for long enough to settle his own nerves in her calming presence.

His hopes are dashed within five minutes of the being dragged back into the dingy side room as Jasper and Malloy start outlining an exchange of goods in a thinly veiled code they seem to have agreed upon in their private consultation. Mulder feigns disinterest, nodding occasionally when anyone looks in his direction and carefully consigning every detail to memory. It all seems pretty straightforward, something big will be changing hands on Jasper’s yacht in the next couple of days Malloy has found a buyer, and will set up the exchange for a cut. It seems they’re almost ready to leave when a quiet tap at the door is followed by a magnum of champagne and a too familiar redhead. Mulder’s breath catches and Jasper grins, waiting until Scully has placed the ice bucket and glasses and turned to leave,

Then his hand shoots out, catches her wrist and tugs hard enough to pull Scully off her feet to sprawl across their laps. Mulder gasps, rage and bile rising in his throat as Malloy and Jasper laugh and a flush rushes up Scully’s neck and stains her cheeks under the pale makeup she is wearing. She opens her mouth to excuse herself, trying to stand but Jasper’s hand still tightly cuffs her wrist and forces her towards Mulder.

‘Now where’s a pretty thing like you rushing off to in such a hurry?’ Jasper leers, ‘I think my mate here has taken a bit of a shine to you so why don’t you just stay and give him a little cuddle? Nothing nasty mind, just you perch up there on his lap like the pretty little pixie you are!’

Mulder can feel Scully stiffen on his lap, rigid under the other man’s touch and every fibre of his being longs to smack Jasper’s hand off his partner’s wrist. But he can’t, and he catches Scully’s eye long enough to know that she knows they both have a part to play, a fraction of a second where this awful room shrinks down to just them, mulderandscully, before she pastes on a coy smile and swivels in his lap to face Jasper and Malloy.

‘But Mr Malloy,’ Scully breathes, her voice fluttering with deference and flirtation in equal measure, ‘I’m supposed to be serving in VIP.’ She bats her lashes playfully and goes to rise, squeezing Mulder’s leg suggestively as she does, only to have Malloy scupper her escape.

Gesturing to one of his men he says,

‘Looks like Keira is needed in here to entertain my special guests. Get Candice to cover her tables.’ And just like that, Mulder is in hell.

With no reason to leave, Scully sits gingerly back down in his lap, and Mulder tries not to look at the expanse of white leg peeking out from the hem of a very short black skirt that’s now fanned out in his lap. Catching Jasper’s eye, Mulder tentatively places his hand on her hip, feeling the heat of Scully’s skin bleed through the thin fabric as she settles closer to him, still stiff but playing the part assigned her. She smells like smoke, leather and liquor but under it all there’s a tiny hint of Scully, the summer sweet laundry powder and vanilla bath oil smell that he would pick out as her in a crowd. Mulder doesn’t mean to lean in to find it more clearly, but before he realises it his nose grazes the velvet skin between her earlobe and her neck and for the first time in weeks he feels safe. She relaxes a little, curving her body towards him as though she can sense how badly he has needed her, and the movement presses her skin closer to him, the russet of her hair brushing Mulder’s cheekbone and shielding his words even as it teases her name out of him, silent and clear as a prayer against her throat. Scully can’t respond, her red painted lips visible to the rest of the room, but she runs her hand down his cheek with a tenderness that makes him ache even as he refuses to meet her eyes, terrified what he sees there will break him.

It’s bad enough that this is how he must first experience Scully’s legs burning across his, her ass underwear bare in his lap and her body close and calling to him. Mulder’s dreamed of her like this, maybe not this outfit, though there’s something about the slip of her skin over the leather pants that is decidedly appealing, but in not one of his Scully fantasies did their first intimate moment take place in the presence of mobsters and traffickers. As she squirms a little in his lap, Mulder fights to remember where they are, to ignore the gathering heat in his belly from Scully’s proximity, from the smell of her soaking into his clothes, from the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, milk white meeting black leather in a vivid line just below his face. He can’t look at her, can’t breathe her in as deeply as he wants to because in her precarious position she can’t help but feel his excitement, and though Scully will justify it to them both afterwards as a physiological response to her proximity, Mulder will never forgive himself for taking advantage of an awful situation.

The gathering contact heat between his lap and her bottom is reaching crisis point when Jasper Hammond swoops in as an unlikely saviour, clearing his throat and breaking the spell.

‘Time to go Mulder old pal. Sorry to break up your little love fest but there’s shit to do before tomorrow,’ and then he’s sweeping from the room before Scully can even scramble up, her hand grasping Mulder’s just a second to long and forcing him to look at her, to see understanding and affection flash bright in her eyes chasing out something dark and unfamiliar that he thought might possibly be-

‘Mr Hammond is waiting.’ The bodyguard is back and impatient, and there is no space for goodbyes in Malloy’s presence.

Back in the car Jasper regards Mulder with a knowing grin. He’s spent the past few weeks trying to work out Mulder’s vices beyond the odd drink and a cigar under duress, amused and infuriated by his refusal of women, drugs or other illicit pleasures. He had the feeling that if he could find the key, the seemingly immovable cool of Fox Mulder would dissolve into the most satisfying kind of mess. And now he has found something his old friend wants, and he plans to have fun with it.

As Mulder stares unknowingly out of the window, Jasper plots. He’ll get Malloy to send Keira or whatever her name was with the other girls for the meeting on the yacht, find her price and set her on Mulder and see how he falls apart.

This evening has gone better than he’d ever hoped.


	2. Dark

Mulder steps on to the yacht, legs shaking with nerves and nausea. His day has slipped past in a series of tense encounters and skipped meals; an early morning secret briefing with Skinner melting into a liquid lunch with Jasper ahead of the evening’s climax. It should all be by the book; Mulder will support Jasper in his nefarious dealings up to the critical moment, at which point he will change his allegiance and lend his presence and the firearm strapped to his ankle to the FBI forces who are floating, lights out, at the meetup point. It all seems doable, no flags have gone up, no awkward questions have been asked and Jasper’s lunchtime call from Malloy had been jovial and positive, his mood this afternoon celebratory. Usually Mulder can get away with sipping a single beer and not have his abstinence noticed, relying on his sharp mind and bottle changes to disguise the fact he’s not drinking from his associate, but not today. Today, Jasper himself is keeping Mulder’s class full of a sixteen-year-old scotch and toast after toast chips away at his sobriety. By 4pm Mulder has to make a tactical trip to the bathroom, forcibly emptying the liquor from his stomach, and he hasn’t felt right since. **  
**

He hopes it’s just anxiety and queasiness, the beginning of the end of this mess manifesting as cold fingers of doubt in his burning belly, but there there’s something in Jasper’s gaze that makes him feel he’s missed something important. For the duration of this assignment Mulder has been treated as a trusted old friend, but now, for the first time, there’s a secret in Jasper’s smile, an agenda Mulder is not party to. The board the yacht in silence and Mulder shivers as the deck shifts subtly beneath him, before making for the cabin as the shout goes up to push off and head out of the harbour.

The room into which they are ushered is dark and smells of cheap bleach and expensive cologne. Even in the gloom, the hulking shape of Malloy is visible in the dark, the long dark limbs of a beautiful girl in stark contrast to the white of his suit as he indulges in the evening’s entertainment, there is at least an hour between them and their destination. As his eyes grow accustomed to the dark, a glass of something smoky and smooth is pressed into Mulder’s hand by an unseen server and Jasper draws him into the room leaning in conspiratorially to whisper,

‘I have a surprise for you.’

Even as Mulder opens his mouth to refuse whatever illicit pleasure his old schoolmate has dreamed up, the words dry in his mouth.

A thin stream of light is trickling past a curtain to one side, igniting dust motes in the air and it turns her skin to moonlight. She’s taller than usual, the strong curves of fighting muscles lengthened into something sensuous by the spiked black heels that mark time as she slips towards him. Her hair and eyes are dark in this debauched place, but her spark is still Scully, her energy sharp even as soft curves spill from the boned bodice of a garment Mulder never expected to see his partner in outside of his mind. Her movements are slippery and her smile is dangerous, slipping past the guards that Mulder tries desperately to erect to protect them both from Jasper’s intentions.

He is not successful, and his companion’s chuckle ripples through the electric air with a sinister humour, his eyes triumphant as this redheaded vixen who both is and isn’t Mulder’s partner slips into his lap with a flutter of lashes and a deadly wiggle of the hips.

‘Jasper – I – she… she’s a waitress – not a ….’ Mulder can’t quite form the words of his objection as the heat of Scully’s ass on his lap begins, once again to burn through his clothing and ignite his body. But Jasper only grins.

‘Everybody has a price Mulder. And I wanted you to have what you wanted tonight, even if it’s short and ginger. Look after him Keira,’and then he’s gone, whisking two skimpily clad women into a side room and leaving a disaster in his wake.

For several moments nothing moves but the boat, the pitch and toss of the ocean mimicking the strangled breaths that Mulder forces past his hammering heart. He stares at a fixed point in the gloom, willing his body to submit to his mind and remember that the woman in his lap is his FBI partner and not the dream fantasy Scully who visits him on nights when his mind is treating him. But then she moves, small hands settling on his chest and leaning in close, warm breath on his ear as her lashes flicker against his temple. The movement rolls her hips in towards his groin and Mulder bites back a groan, wishing suddenly for the restriction of last night’s leather pants, and just as quickly wishing away the memory of Scully’s ass slipping across the glossy fabric to settle against him. Which is where she is now, and still, her lips are moving against his ear and Mulder is grabbing, grasping for words but thinking nothing more than god, Scully, don’t move like that again or-

‘Mulder are you listening at all?’ Scully punctuates her quiet rebuke by sinking her nails into his chest and sitting back to meet his gaze and the shift and the sharpness are too much, his cock jumps in his pants and his breath hitches loud enough for her to hear.

‘Scully – I’m so sorry I just –‘ but even as panic flashes through Mulder’s eyes, mischief flashes in Scully’s and she pinches him again, and his muffled grunt and awkward squirming transform her quirked lip into a wicked smile.

‘You just happen to like when I do that?’ And she tests her theory once more, seemingly satisfied with Mulder’s grimace before standing up. He is simultaneously mourning the loss of contact, thanking the universe for salvation and trying not to get a better look at Scully’s outfit she she spins dramatically and sits back down, this time facing him head on, one leg on either side of his and her arms laced loosely over his shoulders.

‘We have an audience,’ Scully whispers as she once again dips close, her lips spider soft on his cheek and distracting ever so slightly from the fullness of her breasts now pressed against him. ‘First you need to touch me, because Malloy is looking at you like you’ve never seen a woman before and we don’t need that attention. And then you need to listen to me, because something is not right and if they realise you knoww, then things could get nasty really fast.’

  
Somehow managing to divorce his brain from his body, Mulder rests his hands tentatively in the safe zone between Scully’s hips and breasts, the heavy fabric of the basque masking both her heat and her softness. His control is almost undone when she resettles but he clings on to the barrier of the fabric and the normalcy of her voice. He can do this.

  
‘There’s a third party here, I don’t know who they are but they boarded an hour before you and went straight into the hold, no discussion, no drinks or distractions, and they were all visibly armed. It was all pretty quick, but if I had to guess I’d say they were cartel and that Jasper’s deal tonight is not going to go how he thinks it is.’

  
The urgency of Scully’s voice pulls Mulder out of his intoxicated state faster than a cold shower ever could. This is not just a heady reunion and the close darkness of the cabin is suddenly oppressive. He feels exposed; Scully’s lingerie is now a vulnerability rather than a mere temptation and he wants to know everything, to assure himself she is safe,

‘Are you sure Scully? Did you–?’ But his partner is teflon string and steel sharp, whatever she is wearing, and she cuts him of mid-panic.

  
‘They think I’m a two-bit hooker, Mulder and they don’t care what the girls see. Most of them are employed by Malloy, and even those that aren’t would be too scared to speak up. It’s way too easy to disappear a working girl….’ she trails off, momentarily sad, before gathering her professionalism and re-squaring herself in his lap. ‘All they told us was to keep out mouths shut, do our jobs and to get out of the way when a certain song played. So that’s what I’m doing. It’s the safest thing for now. There’s a bug in my purse, no room for one in this ensemble, but I had it with me when the announcement was made so the FBI know and I tucked the bag behind that curtain next to Malloy. Hopefully they’re getting everything.’

  
Mulder fights the urge to look over to Malloy, to crane past the wall-mounted speaker Scully has positioned them half behind to drown their conversation in its’ low, boozy rhythm. Instead, he focuses on the reassuring firmness of Scully’s grip, the security of her competence whatever the scenario and the homecoming of her voice. Here they are in other people’s clothes, surrounded by sex, danger and so many other unknowns, but as always Scully is his centre. When her silence indicates that she has imparted the most urgent information, Mulder can no longer help himself and pulls her into a hug, burying his face in her neck where her smell cuts through the noise of the place.

  
‘God, I missed you,’ he murmurs, not really meaning to say so much, but meaning it with every fibre of his being.

It has been a long month, and more than his home or his life or the convenience of not having to worry about blowing his cover with a throwaway comment, he has missed her. Them. After years of fighting his battles alone, Mulder wonders now how he managed it. Scully’s friendship, her disbelieving eyebrow and her rare giggle, her fierce loyalty and reckless hugs, these now are the moments he values. He waits for her to respond, hoping against hope that in this heady, hedonistic environment his confession will be welcome, and that maybe  Scully will make one of her own, move them finally out of this no-man’s-land between platonic nicety and tantalising potential.

But instead she stays silent, stiffens, and then she’s pulling away, tugging at Mulder’s hands and the music is driving him after her, throbbing through the balls of his feet as his thoughts turn involuntarily from affection to raw appreciation. The sway of her ass is framed by the high cut legs of the same silken garment, swaying away from him towards a dark doorway that  Mulder thinks vaguely must lead either to rejection or salvation. Whichever it is, Scully seems in a hurry and he wants to take in the view in case it’s his last chance, to score every scoop and swoop of the sealy-black fabric and taut flesh into the scrapbook pages of his memory, but she’s insistent and he lets her lead, enjoying her dominance when she shoves him through another, narrower door, and presses in behind him.

  
A lock clicks and the darkness thickens with each breath.

  
Mulder waits, his mind replaying the vision of the last few moments even as he struggles to pull it back to the case at hand. His heart is on his lips, even as his mind starts to list all the reasons his partner might have brought him here, to match her intentions to either the facts of the case which swim just out of focus behind the messy map of their personal entanglement. Reading Scully can be impossible at the best of times, but here, in these clothes, in the dark with their lives on the line? Why couldn’t the bureau have sent her in as a goddamn chef? Or just left her out of this mess?

  
And then just Scully steps in close again, her finger groping in the dark for his chest and chasing north. Finding his shoulders she presses down and the full length of her presses lithely against him. Mulder stops breathing, trying to work out what she’s doing, whether this is really happening, here and now, and then her voice is once again in his ear.

  
‘That was the song,’ she whispers, and her voice is almost flat, but there’s a ripple of something at the edges, some frisson of uncertainty that Mulder  can’t place as he asks her,

  
‘So why am I here? You were supposed to act as they said, and you taking me with you risks blowing your cover, Scully. I knew the risks getting into this but you’re putting yourself on the line now. I should go back out, you should…’

  
And then the muffled but unmistakable sound of a shot cuts through the music that still leaks from the room they’ve left behind, and her fingers clutch reflexively at him, pressing closer as if doing so will shield them both from the danger.

  
‘I….’

  
Scully’s sentence drops into the well of questions between them and when she doesn’t continue or let go of him, Mulder runs his hands comfortingly from the small of her back to her shoulders, straining his ears for any further clue as to what’s happening.

  
There’s nothing.

  
Until she finds her voice again, the cracks at the edges now spreading into her words.

  
‘I didn’t mean to bring you. But that song… I couldn’t leave you out there alone. The men downstairs meant business and… I couldn’t risk you. This month was… and I’d just got you back.’

  
And just like that, for the first time since she wordlessly collapsed into him in an Antarctic research base,  Scully is admitting that she needs him. And this time without imminent death on the agenda. Danger, yes, but nothing so extreme as a fetishistic madman or a terminal illness has ever drawn such a confession of need from her before. She missed him, and even as Mulder basks in the knowledge, drawing her so close that there is not even air between them, he wants to know more. His mind may be satisfied with this small, momentous victory but his heart wants to storm the keep, to press for the whole truth.

  
‘Why not Scully? I would have been okay for one more day. I’m armed. It’s my job, Our job.’ And when she shakes her head, burying her denial in the darkness Mulder pushes, releasing her waist with one hand to find her face, to turn it up to his even though the dark is so complete that he can’t see her.

  
‘I need to know why Scully. Please.’ And this time it’s his voice that breaks as her breath blows lightly on his neck. Mulder could swear he can hear her lashes flutter, sense the conflict in her eyes and the nervous pinch of lips and teeth as she weighs her options.

  
‘You know why,’ she manages, though her breath catches as his nose brushes her cheekbone, her temple, and so he sets his forehead to hers and awaits her move.

  
When it comes it knocks him back against something hard and metallic but he doesn’t care, because there in the dark are lips on his that belong to Scully. Lips that have given up on speaking those impossible words to tell him in actions that everything he has long desired is true and real and burning between them. She’s aggressive, her tongue pressing a firm line between his lips until he groans and gives into her, letting her into his mouth and his body and his heart, a devastating force of irreversible change.

  
She kisses him like their lives depend on it, like the gunshot outside was meant for them, and with Scully’s hand grasping the skin of his waist, dragging his head down to her orbit, Mulder wouldn’t care if this is how he dies. He’s half frozen in disbelief, wondering if maybe he was shot and is hallucinating, but Scully seems real and she doesn’t seem to care where they are either, finally pulling back to gasp for breath only to start pulling at his clothes, panting out excuses and explanations that sizzle to nothing in the charged darkness.

  
‘You know why Mulder,’ her nails trace the line of his collar and then shuck a button open making space for her lips.

  
‘I want this. You.’ Another button.

  
‘I’ve wanted it since… I can’t even remember.’ Her hands slip inside now, just a whisper of sharpness and warm, wicked fingers chasing behind.

  
‘But I’ve needed it since your hallway, Since Antarctica,’ she digs her nails in now, hard enough to hurt but then her lips are pressing to the same spot, dangerously close to his nipple and then an electric swipe of her tongue makes his knees buckle.

  
Scully laughs in the back of her throat, a dirty little sound than shoots straight to Mulder’s groin and her fingers follow it south.

‘I thought you’d try again,’ he reaches for her bodice, to try and find a way in past the night-concealed fastening, but she slaps his hand away. ‘You had your chance, Mulder. I waited six fucking years. Do you have any idea how many nights I sat up waiting for you to come over, how many times you sat too close and I watched for you to lean in, to look up from the damn casefile and see what I wanted? Scully’s still holding his wrists, and as she confesses she lifts one of his hands to graze torturously across the contours of her body, the slick fabric and smooth skin just kissing the backs off his knuckles in a way that seems amplified by the fact that he can only feel and not see her. She sighs and lets go to continue both her exploration and her story.

‘And then tonight I saw those men board. I saw another way for one or both of us to die without ever getting to this, without taking that last step, and I decided it was my turn to act. I wasn’t 100% sure until I saw how you looked at me in this outfit that I wouldn’t back out. There’s always that pessimistic voice in the back of my mind that says if you wanted me, you’d have found a way by now. But you looked at me in there like I was the only life form in the whole damn universe and I knew. That’s why I broke cover. This room contains some of the back-up systems. The walls are steel and at least two inches thick. I stole the only key earlier. Whatever happens on this godforsaken boat tonight, I’m not leaving without you knowing exactly where I stand.’

  
And with that she releases the fly she’s been toying with and shoves her hand almost roughly into Mulder’s boxers.

  
Either the ship pitches or he does, and the roar in his ears is as dizzying as the sensation of Scully’s hand on his cock, taking stock of him with the same attention she gives every medical examination. It’s exquisite torture, her grip speculative and them firm as she breathes against him in a tugging rhythm that mimics the sway of the ship and her hand follows the beat.

‘Fuck, Scully-’ and at that she laughs a little, bites at his neck and grips harder, rippling her fingers down his length until Mulder hisses in his throat at the all-too-imminent end of this long-anticipated moment. He brings his hands to her waist and this time when she squirms to throw him off he doesn’t let her, instead pushing her away into the dark even though it means that the delicious, deadly things she was doing to his cock have to stop, She doesn’t go far though, one step crossing the tiny space and bringing them back into contact, a muffled ‘Mmmpf’ all that Scully gets out before he is kissing her again.

It’s wilder this time, his hands added to the mix and drawing gasps from her as he toys messily with her mouth, his lips playing fast and loose with the edges of her mouth and  rushing to explore to topography of her skin. Mulder’s teeth run ragged  to her earlobe, then dip south and mark her collarbone, small, satisfied noises marking each location as visited before their tongues crash back together. Outside the noise level has changed, there are footsteps and raised voices but in the cupboard, Scully’s hands have found their way back into Mulder’s fingers digging almost cruelly into his ass and trapping his cock between the silk of her stomach and his own body. He tries to find a way under her bodice to access her breasts but his pulling and prodding only succeeds dragging the boned inner seams of the garment across her nipples, her response a strangled moan and a forward press of her body that is both promise and torture in the way it strokes his straining erection.

‘I want. This. Off.’ Mulder manages when the frustration of not finding a fastening drives him away from the spot on Scully’s neck that makes her circle her hips like some sort of tantric hula-hooper to try and undress her. But again she stops him.

‘No time.’ She tells him, though she’s pulling his hands under her ass, ‘the FBI are here.’ And sure enough when Mulder tunes out the roar of blood in his ears he can hear the bureau protocol for clearing hostile spaces echoing through the ship. He sighs and starts calculating how long it will take them to give statements and find a motel, a bathroom, anywhere to finish this when he realises Scully is not stopping.

Even as the voices of their colleagues ring out closer, she is pressing against him, wriggling against the wall and clasping at his shoulders and when Mulder pays attention, he realises she has hoisted herself onto some sort of narrow shelf and that his cock is now resting against the liquid-soft satin of her panties. He tries to think of a good reason to resist the wicked-sharp pleasure that is her teeth now making their own impression on his chest, some effective way to defuse the situation until a more appropriate moment. But then Scully takes his hand and puts it between her legs, grinding the soft heat of herself against him and for Mulder, all thought is dead.

She doesn’t have to tell him to press the slickened fabric to one side because he’s physically incapable of not giving into her. She doesn’t have to tell him to start slow, because the tight velvet fist of her is so damn incredible that if he doesn’t go slow he won’t make it past this first thrust. She doesn’t have to tell him when to move, because in the dark, her breath is catching and her chest is rolling into him and every time he fills her she bucks a little and makes them both gasp. No. There are no words needed, no awkward first-time fumblings because as always where he stops, she begins, where he presses, she gives. This is an act they have rehearsed in many times and places, but is only now revealed to them in it’s true colours.

And it’s scarlet in the darkness, like electrical impulses across the back of closed eyelids and even as footsteps sound in the corridor outside, Mulder drops his hand between them and spirals his fingers experimentally against Scully’s clitoris. She whimpers and presses her face into his chest when he finds the right combination of loops and whorls, just as someone rattles the handle of the room before moving on. He’s so close now he can taste it as clearly as he can smell them, the air laced with sex, sweat and Scully, and he presses harder, fingers and cock together and kisses her temple, willing her to fall apart,

Twice more he asks, and then there’s Skinner’s voice saying their names only a room or so away but it doesn’t matter because with an emphatic thrust, Scully’s coming and her knees are clenching and releasing her hips and her pussy is drawing him in and her lips are muddling his name and God’s and Mulder’s coming too, pouring himself into her as he searches out her mouth and swallows both their sounds.

The silence that follows is swollen with emotion, their breath slowing and skin cooling from branding-iron hot to feverish, the marks of change left behind mostly invisible to anyone but them. There’s an uncertain second when they separate, the rustle of clothes moving back into their accustomed places threatening to hide once more the truth they have both now experiences, but then Scully’s hand finds Mulder’s  and laces their fingers together in an eternity knot.

Outside is the real world, their jobs and their separate lives but something has shifted now between them, and neither of them can go back.

‘I should probably open the door.’Scully says as Skinner’s voice sounds again and closer than before. There’s a metallic sound of a key in a lock and Mulder can’t help but teasingly ask,

‘Where in the hell were you hiding that key?!’

The door swings open and she pauses, the light spilling in, to highlight ruffled hair, flushed cheeks and a smile that Mulder knows he put there, that same dark sparkle in her eye that he’s first seen the night before. For a few moments more Scully is still the wanton woman who just blew his mind in a cupboard, and she bites her lips and tells him, ‘I’ll have to show you later’ in a voice laden with innuendo, but then she steps out into the corridor and Agent Scully is back in business.

Mulder waits a few more seconds, breathing evenly to try and normalise what has just happened before he follows her, closing the door behind him to lock away their secret in the dark.

By the time he reaches the room they had begin in, now flooded with light and full of agents, Scully has pulled an enormous FBI jacket over her skimpy outfit, the hem swinging somewhere around her knees, and in clear even tones is identifying a series of cuffed men who are being led through from another door as the party from the hold.

Skinner spots Mulder first and rushes over to cross examine him, more interested in Mulder’s testimony, his whereabouts when Jasper Hammond had been shot dead by Malloy for the blueprints and access codes to British military complex in the Gulf States, and barely registers Mulder’s distracted monosyllabic responses or untidy appearance.

As the crime scene breaks down around them, Mulder has eyes only for the woman ably directing a CSU through collecting samples from the room, and when she catches him looking her eyes spark back. In the heat of the moment, the room shrinks once more to where she is, the ivory length of her legs stretching from coat hem to spiked heel causing a stir in Mulder’s pants and he interrupts his boss more sharply than he intends.

‘Can we finish this later?’ It’s been a pretty gruelling few hours for Agent Scully and myself and I think I speak for both of us when I say we could use a shower, a change of clothes and something to eat before we get bogged down with the paperwork.’

Skinner looks across to where Scully is stood steady but rather exposed, and agrees grudgingly.

‘It’s pretty open and shut, so I’ll expect you both in to make your first thing in the morning. We’ve booked you both rooms at the Park Inn by the field office. Agent Luis will take you back to the harbour and get you a cab. We owe you for this one Mulder, it was an even bigger bust than we’d hoped for-’

But Mulder has already gone, Scully falling in at his side like a reflection as they head for the speedboat that will whisk them back to the hotel. It takes less than two minutes to pull away from the yacht, the darkness of open water swallowing them and their driver as they head towards the glow of the city. Hidden once again from prying eyes, Scully swings her legs over Mulders and curls close, and as the swell of the ocean rocks them they drift off, lashes weighed down by both case solved and a relationship started. An hour later the bump of the dck wakes them, and Agent Luis averts his eyes and hides his knowing smile as they shamble, his arm around her shoulder and hers under his jacket, towards the waiting cab, guessing correctly that only one of their hotel rooms will need a change of sheets in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a 5 sentence drabble using “cuddle” for @driftingthroughtheskies and an anon, then it was gonna be smut fir @whatfallsaway and then it got a little bit muddled in with an idea from Sunday’s rewatch chat which was (I believe) pioneered by the Jens, @claricex-woman and @startwreck…. whatever it is… it got away from me rather! I hope you enjoy


End file.
